The comic is written in arcs, each set in a different time period and locale. The first arc follows Pearl Jones, a girl struggling to make it big in Hollywood in the 1920s. The second arc follows Cashell McCorgan, a police officer during The Great Depression. The third arc follows Henry Preston joining a team of Vassals of the Morning Star agents to investigate rumors of vampires in the Japanese islands, against the backdrop of World War II. The fourth arc follows Travis Kidd, a young rockabilly vampire hunter in the 1950s as he crosses paths with the Vassals. The fifth arc beginning in April will follow one of the survivors of the Taipan mission who has now become a vampire. The sixth arc (beginning in June) will reunite Pearl Jones and Skinner Sweet in 1950s Hollywood, during the Red Scare.

Thus far, there are also two mini-series, the first following Cashell and Felicia Book in Europe during WW2, and another upcoming one that follows Felicia some time after.

The book is written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Raphael Albuquerque. Stephen King wrote "Skinner Sweet", a back-up feature for the first arc detailing the origins of the original American vampire.

The series started in May, 2010. Winner of the 2011 Eisner Award for Best new series.

The series contains examples of:

Action Girl: Pearl is no pushover. After being attacked by the Hollywood Coven and being turned by Skinner, she does not hesitate to bring on the pain to those who have wronged her. Abilena also fits this trope.

By Survival of the Fittest, Felicia has become this as well.

Always a Bigger Fish: Rears its head at the ending of Survival of the Fittest, when The Ancients that Pavel had been nurturing back to health wake up and save Felicia and Cash before tearing into the Nazi Vampires and utterly slaughtering them.

Asshole Victim: Chase Hamilton from the first arc. Not only did he backstab the vampire hunter who had saved his life and feed him to his quarry in return for fame, he fully assists with the European vampires' coven and feeds aspiring starlets to them. When he encounters the newly vampirized Pearl, he doesn't even remember he gave her to his partners the previous night. It's a bit hard to feel bad for Pearl making him her first kill. Little Feet Beales also deserves note given he spent years selling musicians to vampires to have their blood drained.

Ax-Crazy: Skinner Sweet was somewhat...unhinged after being entombed thirty years and takes his anger out by butchering an entire town. The undisputed queen of madness though? Hattie Hargrove after her vampirization, with her obsessive drive to destroy Pearl and her unhinged murders of others.

Badass Normal: Henry, a fully normal ex-marine who's fully willing to fight alongside his American Vampire girlfriend, and win. Cashell McCogan who's an ordinary police chief who becomes an accomplished vampire fighter as well. Linden Hobbes, out of all the Vassals of the Morning Star, deserves special note as leading the organization in their war for decades and being the greatest vampire killer alive. Special points that he takes down Dracula at cost of his own life.

Travis Kidd is a good contender for greatest vampire killer, unafraid to take on scores of vampires on his own and fought Skinner Sweet to a standstill without any allies or powers and still a teenager.

Beware the Nice Ones: Pearl is a nice girl, until you push her. While she has a vicious side, she's a genuinely sweet woman who adores her husband and helps people who need it...but touch her husband or wrong innocent people and she will kill you and enjoy it immensely.

Big Bad: Skinner Sweet was this for a time, but he's supplanted as the story goes on. Dracula himself is more the contender for this title, but in Second Cycle, the spot is taken by the Gray Trader. It ultimately turns out that the Trader serves an Ancient Evil known as the Beast, who is revealed to be the ultimate villain in the setting.

Bullying a Dragon: A group of Japanese soldiers think it's a good idea to try to rape Pearl. A group of racist toughs also try to torment and murder Calvin Poole. As both these people are American Vampires, this doesn't end well. Calvin gives them one chance to stop before he just flat out butchers them.

But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Skinner can genuinely not remember meeting Travis Kidd or killing his parents. Because he had absolutely nothing to do with their deaths. It was a Carpathian death squad sent to town for a matter Skinner was connected to. Travis still blames him for it.

Butt-Monkey: The Romanian Vampires have this as their hat, though they do deserve it. Not only are they the easiest of all vampires to kill (with a weakness to sunlight and wood), but they keep siring random people and creating stronger bloodlines than them. It's definitely ironic that they think of themselves as the superior species.

Character Development: One of the series' high points. As he lives longer, Skinner gradually becomes more human. Pearl Jones goes from a naive aspiring starlet to a powerful vampire trying to live morally. Linden Hobbes, head of the Vassals of the Morning Star progresses from an anti-vampire fanatic into someone who gradually realizes how his true fight is against evil.

The Chosen One: One of The Ancients in Survival of the Fittest says this to Felicia in its language before she escapes.

In Second Cycle its revealed that Skinner Sweet is this for the Beast, as he is intended to become its new host. He says "screw that noise" and tries to end his own life.

Dark Is Not Evil: Not all vampires seen in the series are completely evil like the Carpathian and Japanese bloodlines: Gaelic vampires were able to coexist peacefully with humans, such as Cash's adoptive father who lived as police officer. In fact, the Vassals eventually realized this and under Felicia Book's leadership, started employing vampires as members.

Fallen Hero: Hurin was the original founder of the Vassals until he was turned by The Beast and becoming the Great Traitor to humanity, or commonly known in his bastardized name the "Gray Trader."

Faux Affably Evil: Skinner Sweet can put up a show of being polite and charming, but he's utterly without morals or scruples.

Flat-Earth Atheist: It seems Lyndon Johnson was one. The VSS had been operating for the U.S. government for decades and had plenty of records and evidence of the existence of vampires. But after Johnson became President, he completely refused to believe in the existence of the supernatural, considered the VSS just a crackpot waste and shut them down.

Friendly Enemy: Pearl's relationship with the Vassals of the Morning Star is shown to evolve into this by The '40s. While the Vassals still tend to see her as an abomination, they're mostly content with the fact that her husband works for them and that Pearl is at least not going around and killing people except those who deserve it. It also helps that they share a common enemy in Skinner.

Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Pearl is by far the nicest, most sympathetic and arguably most human vampire in the series. All she really wants is to live her life in peace and be with Henry...although God help you if you piss them off. Gus Mccogan is also revealed to be one, only resorting to killing the Consortium for what he sees as the greater good of Las Vegas.

The American bloodline as whole has this trope as a hat. While other bloodlines such as the Carpathians and the Japanese vampires tend to commit Transhuman Treachery when turned, the American vampires stay more or less the same they were when they were human and the most we see are nice and friendly. The most obviously evil of that bloodline (Skinner Sweet and Hattie were already evil before they became vampires.

Game Face: The new breed pass for human easily, but when fighting or feeding or angry, they shift to clawed and fanged monsters.

Greaser Delinquents : Travis Kidd has everything : fondness for "race music" (he's seen dancing to The Nocturne's record) and fast cars/racing, leather jacket, sunglasses... And a very special switchblade a golden knife in his sleeve.

The destruction of the "Land" portion of the Hollywoodland sign was caused by a conflict between Pearl, Henry, and the European vampires' coven (although twenty-four years early).

The underground nuclear tests conducted in Nevada in the 1950's were not tests but aggressive attempts conducted by Hobbes and the U.S. military to killThe Beast.

Sputnik was launched by the Russians to keep check on The Beast.

Hollywood: Pearl starts out as an actress trying to work her way up in the movie biz... until she gets invited to the wrong party... Funnily enough, she ends up going back there in The '50s as her cover.

Horror Hunger: When Book was turned into an American Vampire, he fought his hunger for three years with nothing short of Heroic Willpower despite the overriding desire to devour every human in sight. Pearl, thankfully, suffers little from this given Henry's willingness to be a donor.

How We Got Here: The first few story arcs start out this manner. The first one opens with Pearl being dumped in the desert after being bitten and cutting back to 3 days before; the second arc opens with Cash carrying some mysterious package followed by what happened 6 months ago and the third arc opens with Henry pinned by enemy artillery writing a goodbye letter to Pearl and the story moving to a month before. The entire "Skinner Sweet" segment has the In-Universe narrator detailing the story that took place over 40 years ago.

Kryptonite Factor: Every vampire breed has some weakness. The Carpathians have sunlight and wood as theirs, while American Vampires become extremely weak on new moons and have a weakness to gold.

Lizard Folk: The Japanese Vampires in the Ghost War Arc are eyeless lizard-men with huge fangs.

May–December Romance: Partially invoked, but mostly subverted with Book and his goddaughter Abilena. Abilena wanted to invoke this trope, but Book is creeped out by the idea. He even tells her he thinks of her as his own daughter. Still, when he wants her to kill him, she agrees to do it if he will impregnate her first.

Mayfly–December Romance: Pearl is painfully aware of Henry's aging as she remains young and her greatest fear is losing him, even though he makes her swear to never turn him out of desperation.

Meaningful Echo: Will Bunting does this with Abilena. ""Can I tag along?" "Just keep up." Earlier in the story, he asks James Book this on a few occasions.

Not Quite Dead: Pearl didn't exactly kill Hattie, just put her in a hibernation via gold star through the face. She didn't kill Skinner either, as the Vassals recover him and make him their agent.

Nuclear Option: After the American government disavowed the Vassals and therefore unwilling to hunt vampires and The Beast, the Soviet Union is willing to risk launching their entire nuclear arsenal on The Beast should it appear while knowingly this would cause Mutually Assured Destruction for the sake of it.

Obstructive Bureaucrat: What ultimately destroys the VSS is not vampires. Rather it's after John F. Kennedy was killed and Lyndon Johnson refused to accept the existence of vampires and so shut the VSS down just as they were about to take down the Gray Trader.

Pay Evil unto Evil: A running theme: Pearl and later arc protagonists have zero issue destroying those who deserve it...they may enjoy it a bit more than is normally healthy though.

Our Vampires Are Different: The new breed has powers that the older vampires lack. (So far, they have elongated finger-claws, rattlesnake fangs, can swim, and are powered by sunlight, only becoming vulnerable during the nights of the new moon.) There are also several other types of Vampires. Heck, they have an entire taxonomy for them! Essentially, the Vassals admit that there really is no such thing as a 'vampire'. There's just a lot of freakish, blood-drinking monsters in the world that happen to have enough similarities to be grouped together.

Skinner Sweet: See sometimes, when the blood hits someone new, from somewhere new... it makes something new. With a whole new bag of tricks, get it?

Pay Evil unto Evil: Pearl's out for vengeance on the Hollywood vampire coven, and Skinner's old enemies want to put an end to his depredations. Not to mention what Hattie does to her captor...

Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After selling out the VSS and setting everyone up to die, Bixby finds himself attacked by the Trader's people. He begs that "remember all I've done!" and they sneer "We'll remember it...always" before eating him.

Roaring Rampageof Revenge: Skinner and Pearl both go on these, against their enemies. Hattie's also started one, against Pearl.

Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: European vamps are at the unfriendly end to the point they're described as (re)born without the human parts that would give them compassion, so they literally can't be good. Ironically, Sweet's line of American vampires are potentially incredibly friendly, having little to no Horror Hunger, no personality shifts, an easily sated blood thirst (Pearl survives for decades from mild feedings on her husband John). It's ironic because Skinner Sweet is perhaps the most misanthropic and sociopathic character in the series.

Someone to Remember Him By: When Book wants Abilena to put him out of his misery, she agrees on the terms that he will impregnate her first so she will have this at least.

Those Wacky Nazis: In Survival of the Fittest, it's shown that yes, there areor were Nazi Vampires. They apparently signed up believing that the same Aryan/Master Race rhetoric applies to their kind as well as to humanity.

Twilight of the Old West: The first volume shows this in action, which continues to a degree in the second (set in The Thirties) as more of the Old West aesthetics transition into something more recognizably modern.

Undead Child: As of the newest arc, we have several. Each of a different breed of vampire. Cashell's son Gus is another example, given Skinner vampirized him in the womb.

Unstoppable Rage: Pearl. After the Hollywood Coven does bad things to her, her rage is only stopped when they're corpses.

The types of vampires seen so far have been the European vampires (traditional vampires also known as Carpathian vampires, who believe themselves to be the dominant species), American vampires (jaws like rattle snakes and powered by the sun), Gaelic-Prime vampires, a shape-shifting type that is actually quite nice. Its other form is a pretty vicious looking creature with giant bat-like wings ( Cashell's adoptive father was one before being killed by Sweet ), the Japanese vampire (introduced in the Ghost War story arc), a creepy looking thing with giant fucking teeth and no eyes, and the newest species to be introduced, Homo Abominum Canis Asiatic-2, which, like the Gaelic Prime species, were thought to be extinct but there are apparently enough left alive to pose a threat due to how a person can be easily infected if their wounds are exposed to the Abominum Canis' saliva (it is implied that the species tries to prevent this from happening however). Yes... their vampires are definitely different.

The 'Survival of the Fittest' arc also revealed a few minor bloodlines, apparently ancestors of the Carpathian breed, who are vulnerable to different bands of the ultraviolet spectrum. It also revealed ancient vampires, enormous, golem-like creatures who's skin is so tough that it only tarnishes slightly when exposed to direct sunlight. They are extremely easy to kill (while they are asleep, but if they wake up, God Help Us All).

We've now seen a kind of American Vampire that predates Skinner Sweet, Mimiteh, the Native American vampire. It's a huge, terrifying lizard monster with orange skin, and a total immunity to sunlight.

World War II: The third arc of American Vampire takes place in the Pacific theater (Skinner Sweet, Pearl and Henry continue their story here) while the mini-series Survival of the Fittest takes place in Europe (Cashell and Felicia continue their story here).

Wham Episode: The final issue in Second Cycle. The heroes discover that the superweapon against the Beast is revealed to be an dormant angel incased in a warhead. Skinner tries to kill himself so the Beast wouldn't take control of him, and while he managed to both break free and survive at the same time, he discovers to his horror that he also was inadvertently cured of his vampirism and he can't be infected again.

Worthy Opponent: You'd be forgiven thinking Skinner had nothing but hatred towards Jim Book given their early encounters, but when he encounters an actor playing his old nemesis in an Old West show, Skinner kills him while snarling "you don't deserve to wear Jim Book's name!" In their youth, Skinner even mused being 'bad' was no fun without Jim to chase him.

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